THINGS ARE OFTEN NOT WHAT THEY SEEM

A current legal case in France and thinking about a wine tasting of more than 40 years ago combined this week to make me consider how careful you have to be with people, and of what they say and do!

I have remarked on this page now and then about the ritual of “professional” wine tasting and the mystique of wine-speak. I have personally witnessed “famous” wine writers, when blindfolded, unable to differentiate between white and red wines, on one occasion and the difference between Scotch Whisky and Cognac at another. I have also seen a cruel trick played upon wine “connoisseurs”, when a vineyard’s Vin Ordinaire was put in bottles labelled with the producer’s finest and only one or two were able to say the wine wasn’t up to standard. So it is not surprising that from time to time some less-than-honest person decides to make a fast buck or two. This report appeared last week in London’s newspaper.

Now, dear reader, what you must NOT do is to take a bottle of good old Cyprus Plonk and re-label Chateau Pétrus!

I have attended a number of blind tastings in my life and only on one occasion did I achieve success. The Portuguese Trade Office in London held a tasting of their red wines for the press and the wine trade. Portuguese reds were, and still are, under-rated. Anyway, the first three or four were fresh and fruity and then one came along that had more depth and “cellary” notes to it. To laughs from the company and with more gut-feel than experience, I said I thought it was French, from the Cotes du Rhone. I was somewhat embarrassed to be told I was right, because it gave me a reputation as a taster I did not deserve. we begged them not to taste – to no avail. Then we asked them not to mention the table wines on their article, because the trip had been arranged to taste Madeira’s sweet wines. Again, to no avail, but they had praise for the “sweeties”.

Another memory is of our having a Madeira tasting for the press at our London offices. One well known and influential person who came was a very good journalist, later Member of Parliament, Clement Freud. We had the customary “nibbles” with the wines, plus a large home-made Madeira cake.

A couple of days after the event, Mr Freud turned up unexpectedly at the office and asked if he could have the recipe for the cake: “It was not quite the usual recipe, was it?”

Actually it wasn’t because in the absence of sliced candied citrus peel to put on the cake, we had tipped a couple of spoonfuls of mixed chopped peel into the mix. He toddled off, happy, and some months later in a Sunday newspaper’s colour supplement, there was our recipe (but no credit to us!) It’s a nice cake and if you haven’t made one lately, now’s your chance.

Note: For more than 30 years, from time to time, I recall memories of that and other enjoyable wine tastings. Imagine my surprise when, in June last year, as part of the British Police investigations into “historical” paedophilia, Sir Clement Freud (Knighted in 1989) was exposed as one of many involved in the molestation of children. In his case the period covered was from the 1940s to 1970s!